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Buying the Xmas PC David Dorn guides you through the “Upgrade or New” dilemma, and gives some timely shopping tips for high-street stores It’s at this time of year that many households consider purchasing a new PC – or upgrading their current one – in time for Christmas. Quite often it’s a “family” present, and more often a major outlay anyway, so it’s as well to be wise in the ways of the high-street stores. That way, bargains can be had! For instance, only this week I accompanied a friend to our local branch of a certain large and well advertised chain, in order to stamp down on some prices for him – and we saved £400 on what he would otherwise have bought. Let me explain. He’d been to this store already, having taken in his current PC (of some 6 years of antiquity, and well past its become-a-door-stop date) in to see whether there was anything the “techies” there could do with it to bring it a tad more up-to-date. Not unsurprisingly, they’d opined that it really wasn’t worth spending any money on (an opinion I agreed with), and that he’d be better off buying something new. That’s pretty much what I’d have advised. His old Compaq has really reached the end of its useful life, because new hard disks that would fit into it are like unobtianium – yes, they exist, but nobody knows where! Given its age, the power supply would be marginal anyway, even if we could find a new motherboard – and processor, RAM and sundry other bits and bobs – to fit into it. So, he’d been looking about at the machines on display and had decided that an LCD monitor was the way to go – his desk space is tight. He’d gravitated towards a 2GHz P4 equipped machine sporting 512MB of RAM and an 80GB Hard disk, complete with 64MB nVidia Titanium graphics adapter and combo DVD/CD-RW. In standard guise, it came complete with Windows XP Home edition and a 15” LCD monitor for £1400 inc VAT. That looked about right, price-wise, for today’s market. Had he not roped me in, that’s what he’d have bought. Anyway, we sat and drank some coffee, and had a natter about what it was he wanted to do with the new purchase. From this, I gathered that an 80GB hard disk was probably not a necessity, and that 40GB would be fine, and I also gathered that an Intel processor was top on his list of priorities. Armed with information, off we went, back to that world of PCs in which his current dying beast was languishing. My first port of call was to the machine he’d identified. It was a make (and series) identical to two I’ve got here in PPC Towers, and with which I’m very pleased (Advent 3000 series, in case you’re wondering). So his taste wasn’t too bad. But, I reckoned, we could do better for his money. Around the corner sat another 3000 series, this time with a P4 1.8GHz processor, 40GB hard disk and 256MB of RAM. In standard guise, this one was tooled up with a 15” CRT monitor, not the LCD unit he’d set his heart on. The LCD unit shipping with the first beast, though, was available for £299 in-store. Bargaining Now, this is where you need to know how certain chains sort their pricing. At this particular one, they’ll sell you a “base-unit only” package, which drops all the bundled stuff and monitor from the deal, giving you the CPU, mouse and keyboard, complete with Operating System and any other bundled software. What we wanted to do was to drop the CRT monitor and replace it with the LCD monitor. So we grabbed a passing sales person, and posed the question. Off he trotted to check stock availability and pricing, to return a couple of minutes later with a price of £1019, VAT included. That’s £400 (more or less) cheaper than the 2GHz machine. Now my friend wanted to know whether the machine was “as good” as the other one – the £1400 one. So, we examined the areas where the specification differed: Speed In actual usage, the difference between a 1.8GHz and 2GHz is not significant, and not even noticeable. He’d have no problems there at all RAM Another 256MB 133MHz DIMM (which is what these machines take) will set him back, at most, £30, so getting it up to 512MB is no real problem. Storage The only massive storage-needing function he’s thinking about getting into is still digital imaging. He’s looking at maybe getting a digicam, and already has a good scanner and a half decent printer. With 40GB of space on tap, he’s got a fair while to go before he’ll need to get more, but he’s also got a CD burner in there, so he can save photos off onto CD and delete them from hard disk as he goes (a good idea anyway). Price While the difference between an 80GB and 40GB HD (in money terms) is not that great, and another £30 will see to RAM, we’re looking at a £400 (ish) price difference here, one machine against the other. Which way would you jump? That £381 (to be exact) saving is not to be sneezed at, for a machine that will perform almost identically to its more expensive cousin. “But what of the graphics adapter?” I hear you ask. Well, we’re talking LCD monitor here. That means a maximum resolution of 1024x768 – a 64MB Titanium is of no advantage on an LCD, especially if you’re not a bleeding edge games player. Since the LCD is requirement, the 32MB GeForce MX400 is quite plenty for it. By the way, you should know that we got the monitor for £249 in our deal, not the £299 it sells for on its own (they discount when you ”build” a system for yourself), which prices the base unit at £770 inc VAT on its own. So, there you have it. We stamped down on the prices they’d already stamped down on, and my mate came away £400 richer than he would have been. You can do the same – just don’t be seduced by slick sales talk, and use your eyes and a calculator (as well as some savvy when it comes to processor clock speeds) before you start asking questions. Have your say - click here |
